Saturday 30 May 2015

Pompoms! DIY Centerpeice

We had a little tea party for two of Little Djinn's friends and their parents Easter weekend and I wanted something for a center-piece on the table so I grabbed some green acrylic yarn that I picked up in my brief crochet period (after I tried to cut off my middle finger and couldn't hold knitting needles) and my trusty (never used) pompom maker and some little Easter-themed figures from the grocery store:

Pompom maker, expanded:

Pompom maker, assuming the position:
Start wrapping yarn around one side:
then wrap around other side:
make sure both sides are wrapped really full:
cut around the side, following the groove:
cut all the strings:
tie a string around the middle:
release the arms:
all four of them:
pop the centers, Pompom!:
Arrange in a pleasing manner:
Pictured in a glass bowl with a small vase of flowers in the middle, on a green washcloth. I made medium and large pompoms until I ran out of yarn, placed them around the inner vase like hills, and placed sheep and bunnies on the pompoms.

Friday 29 May 2015

A Hat, a Headband, and Another Hat

At the Edinburgh Yarn Festival, one of my only yarn purchases was a skein of Old Maiden Aunt's beautiful Superwash BFL DK in the colour Midnight, which is a lovely tonal dark purple with hints of violet and navy. It's the recommended yarn for Karie Bookish's Baskerville which I've admired since it was released in the OMA accessories yarn club in 2012. I've ordered OMA yarn online (sock yarn back in March of that year and while the colours are lovely they're perhaps not ones I would have picked out in person. Taking pictures of colours is an art, not a science (for example, looking at the website, I would have thought Midnight was a dark blue with purple undertones - it's very much a purple), so I put OMA on the list of "squish in person". I'm so glad I finally got a chance! I cannot say enough nice things about the wool or the colour.
I'm really happy with the hat, too. Tams/berets frame my face and suit me more than beanies, and it was a pleasure to knit. I particularly like how neatly the crown decreases fit with the lace pattern. Little Djinn really likes my hat, too.
Too much. Every time I turn around she's pulling it out of the pram and wandered off with it. This from a child who won't otherwise wear a hat. I should probably accept the inevitable and just knit a second one. The colour on her is the accurate one.
My Baskerville only used about half of the skein so I knit another pattern I had queued for years, Knitted Bliss' Strada Headband. I made mine a little shorter, used a provisional CO, and grafted the ends together to make a loop rather than a button closure. It is perfect for keeping my ears warm around the house or a little bit of warmth (and hair control!) on a warmish spring day. We had a bunch of those back in March when I knit it and not so many since. I still have around 10g of wool left so I added it to my DK toys stash.
Continuing my Karie Bookish love-fest, she released a free hat pattern around Easter, Seaforth. I knit it with some mystery yarn I was given when a friend of a friend decided knitting wasn't the hobby for her and destashed everything. I used just under half the wool and I'm thinking of maybe doing a cowl in the same stitch pattern with the remainders. The hat itself was a fun knit, the ribbing in particularly reminding me of dancing a zweifacher. Alas it's slightly too big for me (a risk when doing a yarn sub, particularly with mystery wool) but I figured if it didn't fit me I would pass it on to someone else,, in this case, Chris who appreciates a warm hat that covers his ears and likes bright colours and patterns.
Little Djinn likes this one, too.